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    • 6883
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    The whole GPL concept is interesting and confusing - I am confused by it all... so what it looks like you’re saying (I may be way off the mark) ... If one person writes a GPL product, they can, if they so wish, allow people to sell it?? Could this lead the way to dual licensing? It is an interesting concept.

    So what you are saying though, that a GPL product’s addons and snippets etc cannot be charged for ... licensed under GPL.

    The reason I joined this thread, as you may or not know... Bandwidth costs money smiley (As you are probably aware).

    Anyway, that aside - I have started development on a snippet site - I’m going to chat with Ralph etc before anything is decided etc - Maybe something to consider. I don’t know smiley lol


    ***listening to new lulu album***
      • 4673
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      Of course, morality is being put aside here.
      Let’s not mix the right thing to do with the topic here. Better to just be neutral like the law and talk shop. Personally, I try my best to support the software I use.

      Hmmm, selling GPL is possible. Not sure of all the intricies (heavens no I’m not a lawyer wink ) but the GPL, I believe, isn’t against making a buck (err, that is a dollar in US terms). The problem it seems is that if you sell it (GPL licensed) then the person who bought it then has rights to distribute it as a GPL item for free.

      RedHat gets around this by selling support, CDs, hats, and you know all kinds of good stuff laugh

      To be honest, I’m sure that many here are also thinking in terms of money. So, let’s cut to the cash (err, chase) and talk the paper stuff (or coins -- Japan has a coin worth about US $5).

      I’m wondering at the moment about the licensing of plugin in regards to the GPL. Would it become viral or not. I lost some confidence in my understanding after reading the mambo thread mentioned above.

      Hmmm, the GPL is going to be rewritten in the near future. I think that this year is a beta release to focus on the millions of questions and comments that are going to be heard, then next year a trial period and the year after the final release. (or was it starting next year? oh well, basically the same)

      peace smiley
        Tangent-Warrior smiley
        • 18397
        • 3,250 Posts
        The perfect licence for open source software: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License
        • Quote from: Carsten at Aug 12, 2005, 04:19 PM
          So, let’s say if someone writes a "helpdesk" program for modx (just using modx as an example) using modx APIs could somebody then go ahead and charge for it without releasing it through the GPL?
          Yep. That’s correct. However, if you modify the MODx API, you’re bound by the terms of the GPL to release those modifications.

          Here’s a better one though. You could build an entire service around MODx, significantly modifying the core and manager. Sell it as a monthly subscription for example, hosted on your own servers. As long as you maintain possession of the code and do not distribute it anywhere, I don’t think you have to release those modifications back, according to the letter of the law. License it to a 3rd party, though, and you would have to.

          Take all my opinions though for what they’re worth and with a grain of salt. IANAL. wink
            Ryan Thrash, MODX Co-Founder
            Follow me on Twitter at @rthrash or catch my occasional unofficial thoughts at thrash.me
            • 4673
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            In regards to the private use, that is the way I understood it too.

            Interesting things smiley
              Tangent-Warrior smiley
            • Also, consider that while the entity that you sell your GPL stuff too has the right to then do whatever he wants with it, what’s the liklihood that they will?

              I was working for Dealtime.com, which became Shopping.com later. They switched from their Windows servers to Linux, and I got the IT guy to give me a copy of the newer RedHat Linux distribution they used (they had used an old RedHat 5.1 set that I had had laying around to check it out in our local developement environment; funny thing was how the Solaris expert they’d hired was so impressed with it - he kept marvelling "It’s just like Solaris!").

              One of the Vice Presidents heard about it and had a cow. He was yelling at me about not having a license. <sigh> I never did get him to understand about the GPL. As far as he could understand, if I didn’t buy it, I didn’t have a license for it. He was about 25 years old, had a lot of curly blond hair...apparently he didn’t bother to read the licenses for the software the company was using.

              And my high school teacher used to call ME a dumb blond!
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                • 24981
                • 109 Posts
                Hi,

                The crucial clause in the GPL is clause 2:
                These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

                The FSF FAQs interpret this, as it relates to plugins:
                If the program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, then the plug-ins are separate programs, so the license for the main program makes no requirements for them. So you can use the GPL for a plug-in, and there are no special requirements.
                If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. This means that combination of the GPL-covered plug-in with the non-free main program would violate the GPL. However, you can resolve that legal problem by adding an exception to your plug-in’s license, giving permission to link it with the non-free main program.

                Bear in mind, this is just the FSF’s interpretation. If software has a set of published APIs, and a plugin/module relies on those APIs, then there must be a strong argument that the plugin/module should reasonably [be] considered independent and separate works. After all, that is whole purpose of having a published API, to define what IS and what ISN’T part of the core program.

                Just my 2 cents worth, and of course anyone intending to develop commercial plugins/module should seek legal advice...blah blah...disclaim...disclaim....

                Richard
                  • 13817
                  • 6 Posts
                  Quote from: rthrash at Aug 12, 2005, 08:30 PM

                  Quote from: Carsten at Aug 12, 2005, 04:19 PM
                  So, let’s say if someone writes a "helpdesk" program for modx (just using modx as an example) using modx APIs could somebody then go ahead and charge for it without releasing it through the GPL?
                  Yep. That’s correct.

                  It depends on what a "derivative work" means. Stallman and Torvalds I think have both said that they think that a piece of code which is utterly dependent on and links a GPL’ed piece of code is a derivative of that GPL’ed code, and hence the GPL has to apply to the derivative. Others argue that it only becomes a derivative work when you actually link it - this is the basis on which nvidia releases closed-source linux kernel modules for their graphics cards. Yet others argue that a program that links dynamically (like a modx snippet does) is not a derivative.

                  Unfortunately this hasn’t been tested in a court anywhere in the world, as far as I know, so it’s still just speculation and lawyers arguing.

                  However, if you modify the MODx API, you’re bound by the terms of the GPL to release those modifications.
                  No. you don’t have to release the modifications. But if you do, you have to do so under the GPL. But you can still charge for them and refuse to give the mods to anyone who doesn’t pay. (But once you’ve given them to someone, they can pass them on for any price they choose.)

                  Here’s a better one though. You could build an entire service around MODx, significantly modifying the core and manager. Sell it as a monthly subscription for example, hosted on your own servers. As long as you maintain possession of the code and do not distribute it anywhere, I don’t think you have to release those modifications back, according to the letter of the law. License it to a 3rd party, though, and you would have to.
                  Yes.

                  So, to get back to licencing of snippets - they could probably be licenced in any way the author so chooses, depending on what you think a derivative work is. English copyright law says that the snippets are copyrighted by the author, and unless the author gives you a licence you don’t have one. At all. But you could argue a very strong case that the act of publishing the snippet on a public web site, the purpose of which is to share snippets, is an implicit licence for you to use the snippet.

                  Incidentally, if you own the copyright in a piece of code, there’s nothing to stop you releasing it to some people under the GPL and to others under some other licence.


                  Take all my opinions though for what they’re worth and with a grain of salt. IANAL. wink
                  Neither am I smiley, but I do deal with english contract law a lot at work. Note that’s *english* law - it’s different in scotland, and very different across the pond.

                  jon
                    --
                    Jon
                    • 18397
                    • 3,250 Posts
                    Quote from: aNoble at Aug 12, 2005, 12:20 PM

                    I was wondering about the legal ramifications of using Etomite snippets. Are all of the snippets automatically GPLd since they’re an extension of a GPL platform? Or do we have to deal with licensing on a snippet by snippet basis? Most of the snippets mention nothing of licensing, I don’t know if that means that we are free to use them or not.

                    I am especially ignorant of legal issues. I realy should get myself up to speed on licensing issues (but then again, ignorance is bliss) wink

                    Maybe we should split this topic in two since this post and after everything is unrelated to the origional topic.